What is Soft Serve used for?

Soft Serve is a self-hostable Git server for the command line, with an SSH-accessible text interface, access control and Git LFS support. It is a good fit for hosting private Git repositories on a small server and browsing repositories from the terminal.

Is Soft Serve open source?

Yes. Soft Serve is open source under the MIT licence. Its source code is on GitHub at charmbracelet/soft-serve and is written mainly in Go.

Yes. Soft Serve is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

Can I self-host Soft Serve?

Yes. Soft Serve can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.

What is Soft Serve an alternative to?

Soft Serve is an open-source alternative to GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket and Unity Version Control. Other open-source alternatives to GitHub include Gitea, Gogs and OneDev.

Is Soft Serve actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Soft Serve was on 1 October 2026, and the latest release is v0.12.2, published on 7 August 2026. The project has 7.2k stars on GitHub.

Soft Serve: open-source alternative to GitHub, GitLab

About Soft Serve

Soft Serve is a self-hostable Git server aimed at people who live in the terminal. It is shipped as a single binary called soft, and starting a server is a matter of running soft serve, which creates a data directory holding repositories, SSH keys and the database.

Users can browse repositories, files and commits through a text user interface available over SSH, print file contents over SSH, optionally with syntax highlighting, and clone over SSH, HTTP or the Git protocol. Repositories can be created on demand by SSH or by pushing, and Git LFS is supported through HTTP and SSH backends. Access control uses SSH public keys, optional anonymous access, collaborators, public or private repositories and user access tokens.

Soft Serve is written in Go by the Charm team and released under the MIT licence. Packages exist for Alpine, Debian and RPM, binaries cover Linux, macOS and Windows, and a Docker image is available. It can also browse local repositories with soft browse.

Key features

Git hosting over SSH, HTTP and Git protocol
Terminal UI over SSH
Git LFS support
Repository creation on demand
Public key access control and tokens
Single binary with Docker image

Good fit for

→Hosting private Git repositories on a small server
→Browsing repositories from the terminal

Built with: Go
Tags: git; git-server; ssh; self-hosted; cli; go; tui; git-lfs

Soft Serve: questions and answers

What is Soft Serve used for?: Soft Serve is a self-hostable Git server for the command line, with an SSH-accessible text interface, access control and Git LFS support. It is a good fit for hosting private Git repositories on a small server and browsing repositories from the terminal.
Is Soft Serve open source?: Yes. Soft Serve is open source under the MIT licence. Its source code is on GitHub at charmbracelet/soft-serve and is written mainly in Go.
Is Soft Serve free?: Yes. Soft Serve is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host Soft Serve?: Yes. Soft Serve can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure; there is no official hosted version.
What is Soft Serve an alternative to?: Soft Serve is an open-source alternative to GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket and Unity Version Control. Other open-source alternatives to GitHub include Gitea, Gogs and OneDev.
Is Soft Serve actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Soft Serve was on 1 October 2026, and the latest release is v0.12.2, published on 7 August 2026. The project has 7.2k stars on GitHub.